Another Valentine is here, and another Islamic fatwa condemning it has appeared.
Popular Egyptian Salafi preacher, Sheikh Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini, said yesterday that the celebration of Valentine’s Day is “forbidden according to Sharia.”
He would be one of countless Islamic clerics to condemn that day in recent times.
During his televised show, Huwaini said that “I am shocked at those [Muslims] who celebrate that day, when all of Cairo turns red,” adding that “What man whose heart is full of the love of Allah could do such a thing?”
After Huwaini quoted Muhammad, the prophet of Islam’s famous saying—“I have placed humiliation and contempt upon those who oppose me, and whoever imitates a people is of them”—the cleric asked, “So how can we Muslims celebrate the celebrations of the infidels?”
Huwaini even invoked economics to make his point, arguing that Muslims around the world waste millions of dollars making phone calls to loved ones, going out, and buying gifts—“and then we complain to Allah asking where our money went.”
Is Huwaini—the same sheikh who justified buying and selling captured “infidel” women for sex—simply being an “extremist”?
In fact, yesterday a popular Muslim website revealed that 84% do see Valentine’s Day as a forbidden “aspect of imitating the West.”
Here we come to the crux of the issue: the problem is not that many Muslims are averse to Valentine’s Day—so are many non-Muslims—but rather why they are: because Muhammad ordered Muslims not to imitate non-Muslims.
Now if Muslims meticulously follow the teachings of their prophet concerning this seemingly trivial matter, does that not indicate that they likely also follow the teachings of their prophet concerning other, problematic matters—such as deceiving, subjugating, and plundering infidels, all in the name of “jihad”?
Once again, then, we connect the dots and ask: Is it not logical to assume that those Muslims who outwardly seek to appear different from non-Muslims, simply because Muhammad told them to, must also be following his more problematic commandments, specifically, those that deal less with appearances and more with intentions?
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